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Fragmented Memories: The Struggle for the Anti-colonial Past in Modern-Day Angola

João Fusco Ribeiro writes about the contested memory of the anti-colonial liberation struggle in Angola.

The Angolan Liberation Struggle (1961–1974) was fundamental in dismantling Portugal’s colonial empire and galvanized anti-colonial resistance across southern Africa. 50 years later, Angola’s anti-colonial past remains deeply contested, its history shaped by partisan narratives, civil war legacies, and a fractured fight over national memory.

Der angolanische Befreiungskampf (1961–1974) war von grundlegender Bedeutung für die Zerschlagung des portugiesischen Kolonialreiches und befeuerte den antikolonialen Widerstand im südlichen Afrika. Diese Vergangenheit Angolas ist bis heute umstritten, geprägt von parteipolitischen Narrativen, dem Erbe des Bürgerkriegs und einer gespaltenen nationalen Erinnerung.


The historical relevance of the Angolan Liberation Struggle (1961-1974) in the African decolonization process is closely linked to its pioneering status among the anti-colonial armed struggles in sub-Saharan Africa, to its direct impact on the end of the Portuguese empire, as well as the profound regional anti-colonial consequences for the white minority regime in Rhodesia, the prospects of Namibian independence, and the intensification of the fight against South African apartheid.

The liberation struggle in Angola was also marked by the fragmentation of its nationalist movement, a feature common to other armed struggles in Africa, but which in Angola assumed a more extreme form. The liberation movements of the National Front for the Total Liberation of Angola (FNLA), the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), and the National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNITA), not only failed to form a united front against colonialism, but also actively fought one another in what became a de facto civil war running parallel to the liberation struggle. This civil war continued after independence in 1975 and was intensified by the internationalization of the conflict through Cuban and South African military interventions.

As a testament to the vitality of its internal dynamics of competition, the Angolan civil war outlasted the Cold War and the withdrawal of international belligerents, entering its most destructive phase in the 1990s and only ending in 2002. This persistent competition has left an enduring legacy of open rivalries in Angolan politics today, along with a deeply contested memory of what the liberation struggle truly meant, marked by established traditions of historical revisionism and the strategic production of silences about the past.

The legacy of liberation in Angola is shaped by several events and processes that have unfolded from independence to the present day. One of the most defining factors over the long term is arguably the MPLA’s continuous control of state power since 1975. This began with its role as the ruling party of a socialist one-party system and continued, following the democratic transition of the 1990s, as the dominant force in a multiparty system with fragile democratic credentials.

This half-century of control has allowed the MPLA to shape the official discourse of the liberation struggle, using state resources to construct its version of history. In contrast, other movements have had limited access to such tools of state memory-making, placing them at a clear disadvantage in the battle over historical legitimacy.

The mausoleum of Agostinho Neto, constructed with the support of Soviet expertise, functions as Angola’s de facto national pantheon, one that excludes anti-colonial figures not connected with the MPLA. Source: Wikipedia.

Official Infrastructure of Memory

The official infrastructure of memory overwhelmingly reflects the MPLA’s interpretation of the liberation struggle, a direct consequence of the party’s uninterrupted control of state power. This state-sponsored memory framework selectively honors figures and events that align with the MPLA’s historical narrative, while systematically excluding or marginalizing other anti-colonial actors.

Although this infrastructure claims to promote national unity, its effects can be quite the opposite. For many Angolans, particularly those from regions or communities historically aligned with rival movements, these commemorative practices are perceived not as efforts to foster a shared national identity, but as expressions of partisan dominance disguised as national remembrance.

Informal Infrastructure of Memory

The opposition is largely left to construct its own informal infrastructures of memory, without state sponsorship but also, in some cases, with limited government interference. A striking example is the site where UNITA’s founder and leader Jonas Savimbi was shot dead in 2002 by Angolan governmental forces, which quickly became an improvised memorial and remains a powerful symbol of remembrance for many Angolans despite its unofficial status. Despite its unofficial status, it has remained an important site of national pilgrimage to this day. The only government interference was not aimed at the informal efforts at memorialization, but at the reburial of the UNITA leader’s body in his hometown of Lopitanga. Something the MPLA eventually permitted in 2019, in what was seen as a late but significant step toward national reconciliation.

The site of Savimbi’s death in Luena became a place of pilgrimage, marked by an improvised memorial and the display of the metal door used to transport his body. Source: Ver Angola.

Inclusive Monuments

While the government consistently blocks efforts to establish official memorials honoring the anti-colonial heroes of rival movements, it has also demonstrated moments of some flexibility. A positive example is the Monument to Peace in Luena. Unlike other state memorials that are explicitly tied to the MPLA’s history, this monument stands out for its inclusive symbolism and deliberate ambiguity. Notably, the monument avoids any explicit ideological messaging or display of party symbolism. Instead, it offers a visual representation of peace, an abstract but universally positive concept that allows for multiple interpretations. This ambiguity enables Angolans from across the political spectrum to see themselves represented and included.

A monument to Peace was erected in Luena in 2012 to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the end of the Angolan civil war. Even though it portrays an abstract visual representation of peace that allows for a more inclusive interpretation, the monument also aligns with the MPLA’s narrative, indirectly portraying former President José Eduardo dos Santos as the “Architect of Peace”. Source: Jornal de Angola.

The struggle for Angola’s anti-colonial past remains an unfinished battle, fought not in the context of the politics of memory. More than two decades after the end of the civil war, the legacy of liberation continues to be characterized by exclusion, rivalry and selective memory. Although efforts such as the Peace Monument hint timidly at the possibility of a more inclusive national narrative, the prevailing framework still reflects a deeply fragmented memory. For Angola to come to terms with its past and develop a truly shared sense of identity, a broader plural recognition of all voices of liberation is essential.


References

Justin Pearce, “Angola’s Momentous Year”, BBC News, 2002.

Justin Pearce, “Contesting the Past in Angolan Politics”, Journal of Southern African Studies, 41, (1), 2015: 103-10.

Vasco Martins, “Hegemony, Resistance and Gradations of Memory: Politics of Remembering Angola’s Liberation Struggle”, History & Memory, 33, (2), 2021: 80-106.

Vasco Martins and Miguel Cardina, “A Memory of Concrete: Politics of Representation and Silence in the Agostinho Neto Memorial”, Kronos, 45, 2019: 46-64.

Jeremy Ball,“‘From Cabinda to Cunene’: Monuments and the Construction of Angolan Nationalism since 1975”, Journal of Southern African Studies, 45, (5), 2019: 821-840.


João Fusco Ribeiro is a research fellow at the Political Science Research Center (CICP) at the University of Évora, and his research focuses on Angolan liberation movements, the decolonization process in Lusophone Africa and its interconnections with anti-colonial support networks from Eastern Europe.


Title picture: Pixabay Content Free License.

The Antifascist Past and Decolonisation: The Case of Yugoslavia and Algeria

Jelena Đureinović from the University of Vienna writes about the entanglements between Algerian anticolonialism and the experiences of Yugoslavian antifascism.

The Yugoslav commitment to anticolonialism intertwined with its experience of the antifascist liberation struggle and socialist revolution during the Second World War. This entanglement of the past, present and future was most evident during the Algerian War of Independence.

Die jugoslawische Auseinandersetzung mit dem Antikolonialismus war eng mit der Erfahrung des antifaschistischen Befreiungskampfes und der sozialistischen Revolution während des Zweiten Weltkriegs verknüpft. Diese Verflechtung von Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft wurde während des Algerienkrieges am deutlichsten.


During the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962), socialist Yugoslavia made significant efforts to provide diplomatic, financial, military, humanitarian and propaganda assistance and support to the Front de Libération Nationale(FLN). The solidarity initiatives built upon the Yugoslav experience of the People’s Liberation War: the communist-led resistance against occupation and the parallel revolution during the Second World War that laid the foundations of Yugoslav state socialism. Yugoslav officials, representatives of socio-political organisations and broader society deeply identified with the Algerian people’s struggle and suffering, recognising their own lived experience of war and revolution in Algeria. Solidarity initiatives also built upon the understanding of the Algerian struggle as similar to the Yugoslav. Medical assistance illuminates these commonalities.

The Shared Struggle

The comprehension of the Yugoslav antifascist past and anticolonial liberation wars as similar and embracing of the anticolonial struggle as a shared cause underpinned all Yugoslavia’s initiatives of assistance to liberation movements from Africa. This was particularly evident during the Algerian War, which began only 9 years after the Second World War had ended in Yugoslavia.

Slovenian Partisans in 1943. Copyright: CC BY-SA 4.0

The People’s Liberation War (1941-1945) created “a kind of symbolic resonance and affective affinity” with struggles against colonialism,[1] and played a connecting role between Yugoslavia and Algeria, fostering mutual solidarity, empathy and understanding. There were actual similarities in the respective antifascist and anticolonial liberation movements that facilitated the narratives of the shared struggle. Just like the FLN, the Yugoslav Partisans fought for the liberation of the country, independence and radical transformation of society against a much more powerful enemy with incomparable resources, facing similar challenges and shortages. The stories of heroism, sacrifice and suffering of the FLN and Algerian people that spanned across the Yugoslav public sphere evoked the memory of the Yugoslav collective experience of war and revolution.

The dedication to anti-imperialism and anticolonialism was an integral part of Yugoslavia’s non-aligned positionality in the global Cold War. Identification with anticolonial liberation struggles was also intertwined with the political commitment of the Partisans and revolutionaries who dominated the Yugoslav political, cultural and intellectual life and of leftist and antifascist internationalism more broadly.

Medical Internationalism

One of the important dimensions of Yugoslavia’s support for the Algerian struggle for independence was medical assistance, centring particularly on the wounded and disabled soldiers. Yugoslav institutions and socio-political organisations managed the treatment of FLN soldiers in Yugoslavia, provided training for Algerian medical workers and helped establish long-term structures of public health that would serve independent Algeria.

Medical assistance to the FLN also linked to the Yugoslav past and present. It stems from the wartime organisation of military medicine within the People’s Liberation Movement and the postwar development of disability care and rehabilitation. The Yugoslav Partisans faced the challenge of treating enormous numbers of wounded fighters during the war and disabled veterans in the postwar years, which accelerated the creation of medical service corps, rehabilitation frameworks and training of necessary cadres. The FLN faced challenges and shortages in battlefield medicine, the care of the wounded combatants and forming army sanitation similar to those that the Yugoslav Partisans encountered during and after the Second World War.

ALN soldiers during the Algerian War of Independence, 1958. Photo: Zdravko Pecar, Copyright: Museum of African Art Belgrade, CC BY-SA 4.0

Between 1959 and 1963, almost 300 Algerian fighters spent months in hospitals and rehabilitation centres across Yugoslavia, undergoing surgeries and physiotherapy and receiving necessary custom fitted prosthetic aids. At the same time, Yugoslavia equipped and staffed the Centre for Rehabilitation in Nassen, Tunisia, which treated the Algerian soldiers stationed in the Tunisian countryside. After the war ended in 1962, Yugoslav experts in orthopaedics helped establish the field of disability care in independent Algeria, initially focusing on the combatants and later serving the broader population. Another important factor that shaped Yugoslav medical internationalism is the symbolic figure of a wounded fighter that was central to the war effort and the Yugoslav culture of war remembrance. Providing care for veterans who came out of the war with disabilities was considered a societal duty serving those who had given everything for the freedom of Yugoslav people. Even though Yugoslavia was still developing and professionalising the field of disability care when the war in Algeria broke out, the symbolic relevance of a wounded fighter and the understanding of urgent need for medical care in the conditions of a guerilla war justified the efforts and resources invested in medical assistance to the FLN.

Antifascism and anticolonialism: A connected history

Solidarity with the anticolonial struggles of the second half of the 20th century was always present-based and future-oriented, as it aimed at supporting the liberation movements and decolonisation and involved common imaginaries of the postcolonial futures. In the case of Yugoslavia, anticolonial solidarity was also about the past: antifascism, liberation struggle and revolution, revalued in the decolonisation context.

The Yugoslav-Algerian relations during the War of Independence illuminate entangled histories and political causes of antifascism and anticolonialism that emerged already during the interwar period. The discourses surrounding Yugoslav assistance to the FLN were about the common struggle against colonialism and imperialism, arising from the political and revolutionary lives and ideals of involved Yugoslavs, many of whom had been underground communist activists, Spanish Civil War volunteers and Partisans. It is the political and revolutionary dimension that makes the connected history of Yugoslav antifascism and Algerian anticolonialism more than a discourse or a case of what Michael Rothberg calls multidirectional memory.[2] As Kékesi and Zombori argue, “there is no path from memory to solidarity, except through some sort of political-ideological commitment”.[3]


[1] Paul Stubbs, ‘Introduction: Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement: Contradictions and Contestations’, in Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement: Social, Cultural, Political, and Economic Imaginaries, ed. Paul Stubbs (Montreal, Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023), 5.

[2] Michael Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009).

[3] Zoltán Kékesi and Máté Zombory, ‘Beyond Multidirectional Memory: Opening Pathways to Politics and Solidarity’, Memory Studies, 2023, 16, https://doi.org/10.1177/17506980231176040.


Dr. Jelena Đureinović is a historian interested in memory politics and memory cultures in the 20th and 21st century. She is a researcher at the Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET) at the University of Vienna. In June 2024 she was a Leibniz ‘Value of the Past’ Fellow at the Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam.

X: @DureinovicJ


Cover photo: Martyrs Memorial Algiers. Copyright: CC BY-SA 3.0